How long do I have to wait?
Updated December 2024
Processing your referral
Once you’ve submitted your referral, this is screened by our Welcome Team.
Sometimes our team might need to chat with you about some of the info provided, but otherwise they’ll send you a welcome message with a link to book yourself in for an initial assessment as soon as your referral’s been processed.
4 days
Please note that if a referral is incomplete, this will cause further delays and may result in us being unable to provide a service
Your initial assessment
Your assessment is where we can chat more about the things you may be struggling with and explore the types of support available from 42nd Street as well as whether you feel we’re the right service for you. You can find out more here.
Waiting Room Peer Support (16+)
After your assessment there’ll be a wait for your support to start, and during this time any young person on our waiting list over 16 can access our Waiting room peer-support service
This is available for young people whilst waiting for support, and may be suitable if you're struggling whilst waiting and would like to talk to someone who understands your difficulties.
It meets on Friday afternoons and is a therapeutic space to discuss difficulties in your life, feel heard and potentially build connections with others. It’s facilitated by our Lived-Experience Practitioners Adam, Chim, Chloe and Grace and they’d be happy to meet with you one-to-one and discuss how this support might look.
Chris at waitingroom@42ndstreet.org.uk
Your Support
The wait for one-to-one sessions to start following your assessment can vary depending on what type of support is right for you and what area you live in.
Unfortunately, these wait times are often tricky to provide accurately as we aren’t always able to predict demand or future capacity. We can tell you how long young people have currently waited to access our services to give some indication:
Online text-based support: Young people across Greater Manchester starting support now have been waiting for an average of 12 weeks.
Self-guided Silvercloud CBT support:There is currently no wait
One-to-one CBT support (available in Manchester): Young people starting support now have been waiting an average of 49 weeks
All other one-to-one support: Young people starting support now have been waiting between 60 and 79 weeks. The longest waits are for those accessing our psycho-social support option.
About our wait times
42nd Street fully appreciates that lengthy waits for a service are not acceptable, and we are continuing to work with our partners to do everything that we can to reduce these times.
We apologise sincerely for any inconvenience and stress this may cause and are doing everything we can to keep wait times to a minimum and provide opportunities to access support whilst waiting for our one-to-one services.
If you, or someone you’re referring, needs more urgent support these wait times may mean that 42nd Street isn’t best placed to offer this. In these cases, we’d encourage you to talk with your GP about other options or use the button below to find services you can access if you need.
You can also find a range of articles written by young people below, and can contact our Welcome Team if you feel you need to speak with someone about your referral (or message them on our online platform if you're registered there). Our chatbot at the bottom right of our site is available for help with any questions too.
CBT focuses on the here-and-now, identifying what feels difficult and exploring your thoughts, feelings and behaviours to help encourage you to make positive changes to your life.
Counselling is a talking therapy that involves a trained therapist listening to you and helping you understand and cope with difficult emotional issues and things that have happened in your life.
Our psychosocial model offers a flexible, one-on-one space with a qualified mental health practitioner to support your mental health and explore social factors like housing, finances, culture or education that may be impacting this.
SilverCloud is an online, self-guided, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy programme. It can be worked through at your own pace, is easy to use, effective and puts you in control of your own progress.
Text-based support uses the same psychosocial or counselling approaches as our face-to-face services, but over our online platform in a webchat in the form of either weekly sessions or flexible weekly messaging.
TC42 is a group that offers long term, democratic and relational form of group therapy for those who might struggle with managing relationships and coping with difficult feelings.
Groups offer direct support for low mood, anxiety and isolation, and a way to meet others with a similar experience, identities or interest. They offer space to just be with other young people, gain confidence and feel more connected or to work on campaigns/social action, research, upskilling or creative outputs.
